It's not too late

At this time of the year, I think of the end of the garden, the end of flowers. Roll up the hose, clean off the spent flower stems, bring house plants back inside. Fall coming on. Even winter. Who would not think this way after the cold, wet, wind of the past few days?

Most of the prairie has turned brown. The crab grass has sown its millions of seeds. The barnyard grass, too. But my prairie is full of surprises and not ready to give up yet.

This flower popped open just in time for my October prairie update. It is, to the best of my flower identification ability, a Common Sunflower. When I am so eager for, and excited by, each new flower, I am dismayed to find someone has labeled my latest pleasure 'common.' To me, it is anything but, coming as it does when I am chomping at the bit for each new plant, each colorful bloom.

Speaking of chomping, this plant has several buds. It had even more before some foraging night creature nibbled a few stems. Ah well. All God's creatures have to eat.

Remarkably to me - most likely because I don't know any better - the Partridge Peas, those first yellow flowers on fern-like stems to appear in my prairie back in June, are still putting out new blossoms. A pretty delight.

Though I may be moving along in my mind to the next seasons, fall and winter, it is fun to see that my prairie does not think it is too late for flowers. Yet another prairie reminder not to rush ahead too quickly. It's not too late to enjoy this moment.

Sunflower playhouse

I tried an experiment this spring, planting sunflowers in a circle large enough to be a playhouse for my new granddaughter. Since Hannah was just born on Christmas Day, she is too young to appreciate my efforts, but that's just as well. The playhouse did not turn out exactly as I had hoped.

For one thing, my desire was for sunflowers eight feet tall with blooms as big as dinner plates. What I actually brought home was a mixed package of seed that resulted in plants anywhere from four to seven feet high bearing flowers not much bigger than my outstretched hand.

To give the playhouse even more color, I interspersed sweet peas and morning glories amongst the sunflowers. The morning glories are coming along, climbing the sunflower stalks just as I'd intended. But, not a sweet pea to be seen.

As I waited for the flowers to germinate and grow, I came upon a piece of yard art - a sculpture of a large bird we came to call "The Roadrunner" - that found its home inside the playhouse. Though the flowers were slow in coming in our cold, wet summer, The Roadrunner was impressive, bobbing in the wind and serving as a landing spot for robins.

Now the five-foot Roadrunner is mostly hidden. The sunflowers are beginning to come on - and they are beautiful as sunflowers will be on a sunny, blue sky day - and I am not at all disappointed in my experiment. It was, after all, an experiment.

Next year, I'll choose different sunflowers and be ready to invite Hannah for tea in a playhouse she'll be old enough to enjoy.